China: Inventing Innovation?

China, one of Asia’s major economic powerhouses, is showing signs of slowing growth. This has prompted its leadership to consider spawning a new wave of home-grown innovations. One Chinese city has announced a programme to cultivate hundreds of visionaries in the image of Steve Jobs, the late Apple CEO, in just five years. With this in mind, the central government has called on authors and artists to create great works and make China a cultural superpower.

For years, China has been promoting a policy of “indigenous innovation” – favouring domestic firms who develop their own technologies. But it has also put China on a collision course with major trading partners, some of whom accuse it of unfair trade practices and theft of intellectual property.